¿Dónde estás?

The mothers' caravan [...], for it’s petition of an institutional search of the missing ones, didn’t receive any answer from the federal government. Mariscal, Ángeles (2012). The caravan of migrant mothers ends without response on the missing. CNN, Saturday, November 3rd.

Transit of Central Americans through Mexico in their way to the U.S.A. is constant everyday and the number of missing migrants has increased in recent years, and the “Caravana de Madres Centroamericanas” (Caravan of Central American mothers) goes through Mexico searching for their missing daughters and sons.

The “¿Dónde estás?” project was born upon the need to get information about missing Central American migrants, and provide their families with updated information about their track. Aside, the project is intended to build a database holding basic demographic information about people crossing Mexico, and quantitative data of the migration phenomena.

By publishing updated information about the quantity of migrants, journalists, NGOs, collectives, academics and migration specialists may use this platform to publish, promote and push governments to issue policies that may benefict migrants in the long-term.

Due to the lack of official data about the whereabouts of Central Americans in transit through Mexico, we considered to obtain data directly from them. To fulfill this, we should established a trust network with more than 40 shelters and migrant housing facilities that are spread across the country -as they will capture the records to be published on the site- and began to build the digital tool for the systematic data retrieval.

The data retrieval will be made through the use of pseudonyms in order to keep the integrity of the migrants and avoid their endangerment throughout the journey.

The project is formed by a website divided in two segments: the first one was designed to retrieve the basic demographic information of each migrant with two purposes: develop a daily record of the quantity of migrants and the use of this network in every migrant shelter in order to keep track of the migrant’s route.

In the second part of the website, the registered migrants search will be possible by tracking the last record made by their pseudonym. Because of this, the participation and trust networks are fundamental for the development of the project. Without the trust networks, migrants won’t know where to register and their families won’t know where to look for them.

Development

It is just too important for us to have a decentralized network, to renounce to it for convenience.Christopher Allan Webber

The code -and its implementation on servers- was thought in function of a development founded in programming tools and languages that could be applied on different kinds of technological infrastructures as well as in a wide variety of hardware configurations.

The data capture and manipulation software must be executed on computers under the surveillance of civilian organizations and actors inside the trust network mentioned above. In the same way, the migrant support organizations will have surveillance over the capture terminals.

For the minimum surveillance and maintenance of the software –according to this terms- we applied the copyleft/licensing of all the code (GPL or compatible licenses), allowing its use, modification, implementation, publication and re-utilization by anyone who belongs to the civilian society. It will be the responsibility of the trust network to detect any problem and, in that case, to apply the improvements the society may come up with. We emphasize that the distribution and access to the database between participant organizations won’t have any other condition rather that the trust network.

The database that correlates the paths, minimum demographic data and pseudonyms will be hosted in a data center that accepts the terms of exclusive use of this information on the basis of privacy: terms of use, legal equipment and technical know-how through the surveillance of civilian society.